1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet processing apparatus, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method capable of sorting and stacking both bank notes and barcoded tickets in a mixed state by a single apparatus, and to a system for erasing sorted barcoded tickets. Note that, the term “barcoded ticket”, each of which is described in this specification, claims, and drawings, shows a ticket having a barcode displayed on at least one of the front and back surfaces thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
An operation mode called a cashless game is employed in game machines installed in casinos in the United States. A play method of the cashless game will be explained as to a slot machine as a typical example of the game machines used in the cashless game. It is assumed that when a player plays a game with a slot machine installed in a play room or on a play floor several times and finishes the game with the slot machine, he or she gets a total credit of, for example, $75. In this case, the credit of $75 is not paid in cash from the slot machine and a barcoded ticket, in which an amount of money corresponding to the amount of the credit is recorded as data, is printed by a printer contained in the slot machine and output from an output port of the slot machine. Note that a letter “$75” is also printed on the barcoded ticket.
When the player, who received the barcoded ticket output from the slot machine, completely finishes games in the play room or on the play floor, the he or she brings the barcoded ticket to a cashier and can exchange it with cash of an amount printed on the barcoded ticket and corresponding to the credit.
In contrast, when the player, who received the barcoded ticket, continues to play a game with other slot machines installed in the play room or on the play floor, he or she can play the game by inserting the barcoded ticket into an input port of other slot machines in place of a bank note.
Since the game can be performed with the slot machine employing the cashless game using not only a bank note but also by insertion of the barcoded ticket as described above, bank notes and barcoded tickets inserted by players are accumulated in a mixed state in the interiors of a group of the slot machines installed in the play room or on the play floor. Accordingly, the bank notes and the barcoded tickets collected from the group of the slot machines installed in the play room or the play floor are sorted into a group of the bank notes and a group of the barcoded tickets and then separately counted using a bank note counting apparatus and a barcoded ticket counting apparatus.
In the above example, however, since the bank notes and the barcoded tickets collected from the group of the slot machines must be manually sorted, the manual sorting job is time-consuming and troublesome. Further, since the bank note counting apparatus and the barcoded ticket counting apparatus are separately necessary to count the bank notes and the barcoded tickets, the cost of the apparatuses is very high and thus the above system is not reasonable. Furthermore, in a cashless game using an ordinary barcoded ticket, ID data is applied to the barcodes of respective barcoded tickets, and the ID data of the barcoded tickets output from a game machine is sent to a host computer and recorded therein to manage it. However, the ID data stored in the host computer must be erased after it is checked against the respective ID data of the barcoded tickets collected from the insides of the game machines. A job called “erasing” for erasing the data makes a job more time-consuming and troublesome.
In contrast, although apparatuses for identifying bank notes through the identifying portions thereof and subjecting the bank notes to various processing are known without necessity to exemplify them, an apparatus for processing barcoded tickets is disclosed in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,110,044.
The processing apparatus disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 6,110,044 includes a barcode reader, an electronic processing unit and a display. Then, barcode data printed on a barcoded ticket inserted from a game machine is read by the bar code reader, the information read thereby is converted into a numeral value and the like corresponding to an amount of money by the electronic processing unit, and the information of the numeral value and the like that have been subjected to the conversion processing is displayed on the display.
Further, the barcode data printed on the barcoded ticket has an effective number portion, and the processing apparatus reads the number of the effective number portion written on the barcoded ticket and determines whether the information recorded in the barcode data is true or false by a total amount of money and other parameters.
However, the above processing apparatus has only a function for determining whether the barcode information is true or false and has neither a function for summarizing the information recorded in the barcoded ticket nor a function for summarizing information as to bank notes. Accordingly, even if the processing apparatus is used, the bank notes and the barcoded tickets accumulated in the game machines of the cashless game must be manually sorted or must be counted using a bank note processing apparatus and a barcoded ticket processing apparatus provided separately, or the data stored in a host computer must be erased separately similarly to the case described above, and thus the above problems cannot be solved by the processing apparatus.